


you’ve got me seeing stars (better than ever)

by aceofdiamonds



Series: is that such a stretch of the imagination? [5]
Category: Gossip Girl, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 21:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4494561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“British,” she laughs, even though she knew this from the calls across the ocean where Blair had whispered that she might be falling for this English boy with a truck load of secrets to rival her own. “I’m Serena. I’ve heard a lot about you.”</p><p> </p><p>blair introduces harry to her two favourite things: manhattan and serena van der woodsen</p>
            </blockquote>





	you’ve got me seeing stars (better than ever)

**Author's Note:**

> more of this! for the sake of this gossip girl's identity has never been revealed, they've just toned down a little. i have more pieces of this verse scattered around my google docs. it's so self-indulgent and so fun to write i might never stop. title comes from seeing stars by borns.

 

 

The first time Harry meets Serena, Blair has a knot in her stomach that makes her clench Harry’s hand tight so she doesn’t throw up in the cab.

“It’ll be fine,” Harry says, all confident. “I can be good with people.”

The thing is, she knows this is true. Back in London he took her to a meeting with people he’d fought in the war with, a meeting which had led to the pub filling with more and more survivors, eager to meet the Boy Who Lived. Blair had sat with Ron and Hermione as Harry had made his way around the room, making sure to talk to everyone, thanking them for their aid in the war effort, passing on his condolences to those who had lost someone. At the end of the night he had been exhausted, leaning heavily on Blair’s shoulder as they had walked home, but she could see that he had been in a place where he had known what to do and say, even after two years.

But he can be good with his sort of people and then come to New York where everything is coated with lies and glamour and miss the point of what’s been said. Blair knows what he’s like but no one else here does. This is someone new she’s bringing into their group, and after the disaster with Louis she can understand their wariness. She doesn’t want to pile all of this hope on Harry but after five months she feels she knows him so much more than she ever knew Louis and that has to count for something.

“Hey,” he says now, voice soft in her ear as they approach Serena’s table. “Blair, it’s going to be okay.”

“So you say,” she replies, sharp edges glinting, but she squeezes his hand once more, letting go as they reach the table.

“I haven’t seen you in forever, B,” Serena exclaims, getting to her feet to pull Blair into a hug. Her arms wrap around her waist to pull her close, laughing throatily when Blair waits a beat before hugging her back, always trying to be the one holding out longest. They stand there for a long moment, inappropriate in such a public place, but it’s been so long, Blair can’t believe how much she’s missed her best friend.

“I’ve missed you,” she admits when they pull apart.

Serena grins at her, eyes glinting that way they always did when she and Blair were at the top of their wheel. Like they could achieve anything they put their minds too, just because they were together. “Missed you too. Please don’t leave for that long again.”

And Blair promises because Italy was beautiful and London was interesting but Manhattan is home.

“And who’s this?” Serena asks, smiling at Harry who is standing a little off to the side, hands deep in his pockets.

“Harry Potter,” he says, pulling a hand out of his pocket to shake Serena’s. “Nice to meet you.”

“British,” she laughs, even though she knew this from the calls across the ocean where Blair had whispered that she might be falling for this English boy with a truck load of secrets to rival her own. “I’m Serena. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Likewise,” Harry says, and then he grins, easy, and Blair feels herself breathe a little easier.

The three of them sit down, huddled around this little table in a restaurant Blair wouldn’t have been caught dead in a year ago. Then bloody divorces happen and, well, things change. “So, what have I missed?” she asks Serena, leaning into the table. Her hand finds Harry’s under the table, her pinky hooking around his, and usually she abhors such displays, but this is hidden, private, a reassurance she needs back in this world.

“Surprisingly not a lot,” Serena shrugs. “The Upper East Side has been quiet without you, B.”

“Or maybe we’ve all grown up,” Blair offers, a flutter of pleasure running through her even after all this time that things around here aren’t quite the same without her. “Where’s Humphrey these days?"

And now Serena’s cheeks flush and that’s Blair’s answer right there.

  


.

  


They spend an hour or two catching up on the past few months, laughing about incidents that happened way in the past and carefully avoiding mentioning Chuck’s name. Harry chimes in every now and then with something he’s noticed while being in the city or to spill something about Blair to Serena, his smile fond when he talks about Italy, but he’s happy to sit and let Blair ease herself back into her circle.

“Are you staying here for a while?” Serena asks when she has to go and meet Dan, wrapping a scarf Blair recognises as his around her neck. “You’re not going to disappear again when I turn my back?”

“Not yet,” Blair promises. They haven’t discussed what they’re doing yet, if London or New York is where they’ll settle, if they reach that stage. “I’ll be here for the foreseeable future, S.”

Serena smiles again and then squeezes Blair’s hand. “Good. It was nice meeting you, Harry,” she adds, just as she leaves. “Take good care of her, alright? Nate and I can be a very formidable pair.”

“I’ll remember that,” Harry promises, playing along to the wink from Serena before she leaves in a whirl of blonde hair and trench coat.

“That was Serena,” Blair says unnecessarily as they wander out into the street.

“I liked her,” Harry decides, stepping out into the road to hail a cab. “But she wasn’t really how you described her.”

“Serena’s never really how you describe her,” Blair says, and then, spirits soaring high, she steps in and kisses Harry right there for everyone in New York to see. “I’m glad you’re here,” she breathes when they pull away, a cab honking obnoxiously beside them.

  


.

  


A Gossip Girl blast wobbles them momentarily.

Harry’s pacing around Blair’s living room, phone in hand. “I don’t get how this works.”

“She’s been around since high school,” is all Blair can say. “We’re her favourite subjects.”

“But why have you all let her --”

“We don’t _let_ her,” Blair argues, because Harry’s not from here, he doesn’t know. “Nate’s been trying to work out who she is but it’s impossible -- she has half the city sending her tips, it could be anyone.”

He pauses, frowning. “I could put a Tracking Spell on her,” he offers, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck.

Blair sighs. “I don’t think you should get involved, Harry.”

“How can you live like this? Look at this --” he thrusts the phone in her face.

_Has Queen B got a new beau? Sources say she spent the afternoon catching up with Serena with a British boy in tow, going as far as to kiss him out on the street, far more daring than B’s normal PDA rules. It may be early days but could this be lucky husband number three? XOXO_

“I know, Harry,” she says, gently taking the phone from him. “I’ve seen it. Listen -- she used to be a lot worse, she’s really toned it down the last couple of years. We’ve decided to let her be -- maybe if, god forbid, we become boring enough, she’ll get bored and leave us alone.”

This settles him; he collapses onto the couch beside Blair, exhaling noisily. “Boring. I’ve never described my life that way before.”

“Neither have I,” she says primly, mostly proud of that despite all the negative parts. “And I don’t intend to.”

‘So this means?”

“Gossip Girl can go fuck herself,” she spits out.

Harry laughs, his face open and happy, and Blair finds herself doing the same. This situation is new to her; she’s never completely given herself up her fate on Gossip Girl, always a little on edge of what will come next, but with someone beside her who has no idea of the messes it has caused, of how it came so close to destroying everyone she knew, she quite likes the idea of throwing it to the side, treating it as the meaningless site it should be.

She twists the sleeve of Harry’s t-shirt in her hand, tugging him over until she can kiss him, his lips too sweet from the soda he’s just finished and his hands too cold when he reaches for her waist where her top has ridden up. She sighs, parting her lips for his tongue, and she lets herself fall into the feel of Harry against her, never caring what Gossip Girl has to say about it.

  


.

  
  


“I can’t remember the last time I saw you this happy,” Serena tells her when they meet for brunch the next day. Blair’s left Harry lying in bed with a stack of her favourite books beside her -- he’s been talking about reading more for weeks, here’s his chance while Blair socialises. “He must be really something.”

“You could say that,” Blair says, biting hard at her lip to stop from spilling too much, and then she bursts. “God, S, he’s messy and perpetually late and you should hear some of the stuff he says but he’s so different from everyone else I’ve been with. I think this is what I need right now.”

“Well, I’m happy for you,” and then she takes a sip of her coffee, waggling her left hand around the cup until Blair blinks and takes notice of the rock on her ring finger.

She gasps loud enough for the couple at the next table to glance over in alarm, turning back to their conversation when they see Blair reaching out for Serena’s hand. “When did this happen?” she demands, pulling the ring and the attached hand up to her eye. It’s nothing like the ring Louis got her, nor the one Chuck gave her for that matter, both of them nestled in her underwear drawer at home, but it’s impressive, for Humphrey. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to steal your thunder,” Serena says, laughing delightedly. “It was so romantic, Blair. We were having dinner in the loft last month --”

“In the _loft_? In _Brooklyn_?” Blair can’t help herself. “Oh, Serena.”

“Shh, don’t ruin it,” she insists, but she’s still smiling. Blair has always fought to be the Queen in a city where Serena has held the crown effortlessly. At times she’s wondered nastily what Serena has that she doesn’t, leaving all the baggage at the door, but with the way she’s looking now, joy brimming out of her, it’s not hard to see why the people of Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs fall at her feet. “He just got down on one knee right in the middle of dinner and asked me, can you believe it?”

“Congratulations, Serena!” Blair says, not bitter or jealous at all. See, she has grown up. “I’m so happy for you.”

Serena fingers the ring, sliding it round and round, and now Blair knows about it it’s incredible she never noticed it before. “Things are working out for us, Blair. We’re getting there.”

  


.

  
  


“Hermione says New York’s full of magical communities from all over the world,” Blair says later that night. Her head is resting on Harry’s chest, breath coming back to her in short gasps after the way he had fucked her, his fingers clever and long as they had worked her to the edge twice and then once more, leaving her wobbly and speechless.

Harry hums a reply, already halfway to sleep. “Should have a look,” he mumbles.

“Could be interesting,” she replies, always eager to learn more about the magic she can’t do. She yawns. “Maybe tomorrow.”

This time she can’t make out Harry’s answer and she finds she’s too tired to carry on the conversation herself. She runs her hand over his chest, pausing as she always does at the scar just above his heart from the locket with a soul, and then she closes her eyes.

  


.

  


New York with Harry Potter is a different city than Blair is used to. She leads him through streets she’s known since childhood, taking him to her favourite cafes, museums, galleries. One day in the middle of fall they shoot to the top of the Empire State Building and Harry does something to her sunglasses that lets her see her city in a level of detail she’s never experienced before.

Despite Blair’s comments he’s not that interested about finding out more about magic at first but after a few weeks he seeks out wizards and witches who have been living their double lives just down the block from Blair’s building. They show him centuries-old maps, crisscrossed with paths of spells and hexes, and they tell him the history of American magic and how it differs from the old magic Harry has learned in Britain. Harry comes back from these meetings thrumming with an energy that Blair latches on to, running with that momentum to find an internship of her own at _W_. It feels like something of a step backwards but this time she’s more confident with herself, more at ease with every other aspect in her life, so this time she approached it with the attention it deserves, not going quite so overboard as last time.

They settle.

  
  


.

  
  


Eventually she’ll tell Serena that Harry is different from them, different from anyone she’s met before, and Serena will smile coyly and say that must mean she’s in love. Blair will wave this off, not denying it at all, and then she’ll tell Serena that actually he’s a wizard, believe me, it’s better than it sounds. Serena won’t believe her at first, she’ll accuse Blair of being ridiculous, always trying to make things more than they are, but she’ll come around quickly enough.

Blair knows it sounds ridiculous: Blair Waldorf, Queen of the Upper East Side, and Harry Potter, a man with power and magic and a tattered history, but they work, and that’s enough for now.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
